Metta World Peace Expects Plenty of Touches in Lakers’ Offense

Metta World Peace is in tremendous shape coming into the season. Which is a good thing, because he’ll have to battle for touches in the Lakers’ star-studded offense. Right? Well, maybe not. From ESPN: “If [Kobe's] not going to average 100, then there’s going to be points out there, right?’ World Peace says. ‘If he scores 30 a night, that’s 70 points left.’ World Peace has done the calculations. More important, he’s put in the perspiration, logging the requisite work to shed what he says is 20 pounds. The math part is much easier: Subtract Kobe Bryant’s points from the 100 or so the Lakers will average, then divide the rest among the remaining rotation players. ‘There’s points out there,’ World Peace says, and he intends to get his share of them. [...] ‘This is not just about the rock stars,’ World Peace says. ‘We have other players that are really good. I am coming to the game with a guitar during the regular season. Every game, I’ll have a guitar.’ Once a scorer, always a scorer’s mentality, and World Peace is a guy who averaged 20 points as recently as five years ago. But the same amount of touches won’t always be there, especially while playing with Bryant, the league leader in usage rate for two of World Peace’s three seasons in Los Angeles. Even with one of the best distributors in the league, Steve Nash, on board, there’s Howard to command the ball down low, in addition to Pau Gasol. So it’s easy to overlook World Peace when thinking about the Lakers’ offensive options. ‘How are they going to forget about me?’ World Peace counters. ‘That’s impossible. They try to. People purposely try to forget about me. But that’s impossible. It’s just impossible.’”